PHNOM PENH – Active co-ordination and frequent meetings have enabled authorities on both sides of the Việt Nam-Cambodia border to implement agreements and maintain security and stability.

This was the conclusion of the ninth Conference on Co-operation and Development of Vietnamese and Cambodian border provinces, co-chaired by Việt Nam’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Phạm Bình Minh, and Cambodia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Home Affairs Samdech Sar Kheng in Phnom Penh, Cambodia yesterday.

Since the eighth meeting in October 2015, local officials have paid regular visits to each other and localities have assisted each other in building roads, training human resources, exchanging high-yield plants, providing healthcare services, and conducting cultural and sports activities.

Such activities enabled both sides to address issues that arise and enhance their friendship and solidarity, the participants said.

They agreed to further boost the links between ministries, sectors and localities, fine-tune mechanisms and policies encouraging cross-border trade, and make it easier for respective investments.

The localities will work together in agriculture, forestry and fishery, healthcare, and human resources training, and pay heed to upgrading transport infrastructure and border trade areas.

They said they will speed up the land border demarcation and the planting of border markers while pledging to prevent any hostile force from entering each other’s territory.

More people-to-people exchanges will be organised, as will education for border residents, especially the youth, to help them to understand the importance of preserving and fostering the traditional friendship, solidarity and mutual assistance.

Deputy PMs Minh and Kheng asked ministries, sectors and border localities of the two countries to work more closely on improving cooperation, continue to maintain political security and social order and improve local living standards.

During the conference, ministries, sectors and border localities held separate meetings to seek specific cooperative measures. The two sides issued a joint statement at the end of the conference. — VNS